


Comes Around Again

by Chichirinoda



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, College, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-21 09:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chichirinoda/pseuds/Chichirinoda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The game is over, and they've won. John has just one wish - for all of the players to be together, alive and happy. But this wish results in a reset. They're all alive, but none of them remember the others except in strange, half-remembered dreams. Still, fate is strong and they're drawn together inexorably. The sixteen SBURB players wind up going to the same University. This story follows their trials and tribulations as they become friends once again, and work out their tangled love lives, while they deal with strange dreams and the odd feeling that they know each other from somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As you can guess from the tags, this is a pretty big, shippy fic. In addition to the romantic ships listed in the tags, there will also be Nepeta x Equius, Sollux x Feferi and Eridan x John. Any other concupiscent ships that develop, I'll edit the tags accordingly, while pale and ashen ships will be in the notes here.

You have faced many trials, Heir. You have reached Godhood and beaten the final boss.

You have destroyed me, but my power is not yet gone.

I will grant you ne wish, with the last of my power.

What is your wish?

John looked back, at the small rag-tag group that remained. Karkat was at his side, bruised and bloodied, but still alive. But there were so many who hadn't made it, and it made him sad right down into his bones.

The troll met his look and gave him a nod. In this, John was the best one to lead, and the others gave him their trust. It was the only thing they had left to give.

John faced Lord English and lowered his hammer.

"I just wish..."

There was only one thing he could think of.

"I wish we could all be together again."

========>

And s it shall be

========>

The trolls had always been there. John knew that was true - well, true enough, anyway. He had learned in high school about how thirty years ago the troll ships had landed and disgorged a mother grub, a few imperial drones and about a million lusi. The Earth governments had panicked badly at first, apparently, but when the young trolls began to grow up, they integrated pretty well into society in the end. It hadn't been an invasion, just a colonization, and there was enough room for everyone.

So it hadn't really been forever, but to a teenager, anything that happened before he was born might as well have been in antiquity. He had never questioned it.

A troll wriggler had moved into the empty lot down the street a few days after John's fifteenth birthday and built a hive, and John had known him well enough to wave at him on the street. A few older trolls around his own age had gone to his high school. It had just been a part of daily life, and he never thought much of it until he was paired with one for his Data Structures 101 class in University.

This one had nubby little candy corn horns that John immediately found familiar, but he couldn't figure out why. The troll kid grunted softly and scooted his chair closer to John's when the teacher handed out the assignment, so they could both see the computer screen at the same time.

"Hi," John said, flashing a grin at the stranger. "I'm John Egbert."

"Good for you," the troll said grumpily, jabbing at the keyboard as his eyes scanned the page and then rose back up again to peer at the computer screen. John shifted over a little, giving him room.

"What's your name?" John prompted, trying not to be dissuaded by the other teen's manner. "I guess we're paired up for the rest of the semester, so we might as well get to know each other, don't you think?" Maybe he was just in a bad mood.

Yellow eyes flicked to John's face, then away, needle-sharp teeth baring for an instant in an expression that was almost completely unlike a friendly smile.

"Karkat Vantas. And we're not going to be friends, so save yourself the trouble. You gonna help me with this or not?"

That night while his roommate Dave Strider breathed softly in the next bed, for the first time, John dreamed of the wind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely and talented Hanshi has drawn a lovely picture for this chapter! It can be found [here!](http://i.imgur.com/IEQFv.png)

Sollux was destined for this. He had always known that to be true, but he was okay with it.

The soft whoosh and whine of the university computer lab was a comfortable background white noise that made him feel almost as comfortable as if he were in his hive at home with ever-present hum of the bees.

Of course, these computers were shit, and there wasn't much for him to do other than play mine sweeper and occasionally unjam a printer, but he was glad he had taken the job opening in university tech support. After the first few calls they had taken him off of phones and sent him down to the basement lab to babysit the computers there, and he was just fine with that, too. He hated talking on the phone, out loud, to real people. Though even here in the basement sometimes people looked at him with that little smile that told him they thought his lisp was funny, at least they could understand him when he talked to them in person.

And by and large, few people came down here, anyway. There were other, bigger, brighter computer labs. While those were always crowded, not too many people knew this one even existed, so generally the only sound was the hum of the computers and the whoosh of the air ventilation system.

The door opened with a creak and he looked up in surprise. It was close to midnight, and he hadn't seen a soul in over two hours. A troll girl with long wavy hair that fell past her waist and long, curling horns entered cautiously, looking around.

Sollux sighed. The girl looked like she'd never seen a computer before, and he'd certainly never seen _her_ before.

He jumped to his feet and came around from behind his desk. "You lotht?" he asked casually. He looked her up and down, at the hippy-style long skirt and the pleated shirt she wore. Wow, was she ever gorgeous. He felt his cheeks turning a little yellow, and tried not to stare. "If you're looking for the art department, you'll have to go outthide and turn right at the thidewalk. It'th the third building down."

"Art department?" The girl blinked in confusion. "Why would I go there? I was looking for tech support."

"Oh uh..." Sollux's cheeks grew hotter as he mentally reoriented himself. "Um, no reathon. You've come to the right plathe. Can...can I help you?"

"I sure hope so," she said fervently. "Are you Sollux?"

Stunned that she knew his name, he forgot that he hated to say it out loud. "Yeah, yeah I'm Thollukth. You were looking for me?"

She didn't smile at his lisp. She beamed brightly and bent a little, rummaging in her messenger bag before pulling out a bright red husktop. "Oh thank Gog, I have an essay due tomorrow morning in my Archaeology class and I think I have a bad sector on my hard drive. I need the data. They said on the phone there was nothing they could do, but that you might be able to get the essay printed out for me."

She looked at him with the most beautiful, beseeching eyes he had ever seen. "Please, Sollux, can you help me?"

He stared at her for a moment, then reached for the machine. "Thure," he said. He'd have said it even if he had been sure there was no hope in hell of him ever being able to access the data. "I'll do it. But uh..." He looked around at the antiquated computers in the lab, his heart beating a little faster at what he was about to say. "I don't have the equipment for thith here. I'll have to do it at my hive. I can go right now, though."

She nodded, shouldering her bag once more and looked at him expectantly. "I understand. Thank you, Sollux. Really, you're a lifesaver."

He hesitated, then made to step around her. "Okay then..."

As he walked out of the lab, Aradia followed. He was fully, totally aware of her presence as he paused to lock up the lab, and she continued to follow him as he walked down the hall. His heart sped up again. She was coming with him. A real girl. Was coming to his hive. He desperately tried to remember if he'd picked up at all this morning. He really hoped there wasn't any underwear on his floor.

"My car'th thith way," he mumbled, shoving the keys deep into his pocket and tucking the husktop under his arm as he passed under the 'exit' sign and started up the stairs.

"You don't mind if I come with you, do you?" she asked quietly. "I don't want to intrude or anything."

His head whipped around and for a moment his eyes narrowed behind his bi-coloured shades. Was she making fun of him or something? Why would she worry about what some loser thought, when he was taking her computer off somewhere? If it were him, he wouldn't let the husktop out of his sight.

But he bit back the reply when he saw the earnest look in her eyes. She wasn't laughing. She _still_ wasn't laughing, and he found himself smiling just a little.

"Nah, not an intrusion at all. Come on, I'll fikth you up quick and you can finish your ethay."

She smiled and nodded, and he continued up the stairs with a slight spring in his step. A real girl. Smiling at him. Thinking he was some kind of hero or something.

For a minute or two, he might actually believe it himself, when she looked at him like that. Too bad he'd probably never see her again after this.


	3. Chapter 3

Dave knew this wasn't really what he was supposed to be doing. But that was okay. It was sort of ironic, in a way, spending thousands of dollars for a degree that he wouldn't use, just so he could have access to the sweet recording equipment in the university radio booth.

Maybe he'd pass most of his classes and get the piece of paper in the end, then hang it on his wall. Maybe he'd wipe his ass with it first. That'd be pretty sweet.

"Hey Dave. Isn't it time for your Poly Sci class?"

His roommate was sprawled on his bed, feet kicking in the air, hair rumpled and glasses a little askew. He pushed them up with a finger, though it didn't really help, grinning at Dave over his open textbook. Dave felt the urge to kiss him, so he walked over and punched him in the shoulder.

"I was just going, mother."

"You're not even wearing a shirt!" John rubbed his arm.

"Who needs shirts? It's only class. Maybe the prof is hot, and would like to get an eyeful of Striderpecs."

John sat up and tried to hook a leg around Dave's knee. Dave avoided him. A lifetime of being randomly attacked by a katana-wielding brother made his reflexes pretty sharp. John pouted.

Dave sat down on the edge of the bed and grabbed a shirt off the floor. Sniffed. Pulled it over his head.

John slung his arms around his shoulders. The two of them had hooked up over the summer, when Dave had stayed at John's house for a month. When they finished high school, it had seemed like a good idea to put each other down as roommates, since they'd been friends pretty much forever online. It still seemed like a good idea now, what with the whole boyfriend thing. John was affectionate, and Dave was aloof, but John didn't seem to mind, and Dave didn't mind the cuddles even if he pretended to.

"You're never going to pass your classes if you don't go!" John said into his ear, a little too loudly.

Dave warded him off and stood. "I'm going. This is me. Going to class."

He turned away and reached for his backpack, but John's voice made him pause one last time.

"Hey Dave... the trolls. They're supposed to be on Earth, right?"

Dave blinked and looked back, pushing up his Ben Stiller shades - the ones John had given him - as he studied his best friend's expression. John returned his gaze, open and honest and looking nothing more than a little confused.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

John smiled with what looked like relief. "Nothing. Have a good class."

Dave just shook his head and booked it for class. He made it with five minutes to spare.

He took a seat in the back and tilted his chair back against the wall, his feet barely touching the floor. The teacher - an old, crusty broad, so much for her being hot - passed out lesson plans for the year, and Dave closed his eyes. One huge benefit of wearing shades even inside was that he could sleep in class and no one could really tell. Thankfully, he didn't snore.

He hadn't even begun drifting off yet when a weird, quiet slurping sound at his elbow attracted his attention. His head jerked to the side, and he watched a troll girl with pointed horns and red glasses methodically licking each page of her lesson plan.

It took a few moments before he trusted himself to speak.

"Are all trolls insane, or just you?"

She set the page down and stuck her tongue out at him. There was a bit of ink on it. Her lesson plan was a little wrinkled from the saliva. "I happen to be blind, not insane. And if you don't mind, I'm reading," she said, and smiled with all of her teeth. It was at once a cheerful and a terrifyingly insane expression.

"Reading?" Dave echoed doubtfully. "With your tongue?"

"Yeah, how else am I supposed to do it, with my eyes?" the girl asked, rolling them.

He shrugged. The teacher was starting to lecture, and glared at them both as she heard them speak. Dave leaned his head back against the wall again, but didn't close his eyes, watching as the troll girl pulled out a red pen, flipped her lesson plan over, and scribbled a doodle.

It was a little hard to recognize at first, as her grey hand moved quickly over the page, accidentally running over her own lines and wandering drunkenly as she drew blindly. But Dave had to cover a smile with his hand as he finally recognized the teacher, with horns, flames shooting out of the general vicinity of her mouth, and a dragon tail that was probably supposed to be coming out of her ass, but had floated back about an inch.

He dropped the legs of his chair to the floor and plucked the pen out of her hand, adding a little Dave and troll girl brandishing misshapen swords and menacing the dragon teacher.

After a lick to view the picture's addition, the girl giggled and leaned in close.

"I'm Terezi. Who are you, human?"

"Dave."

She grinned and licked his cheek and breathed in deeply, and he grimaced, wiping troll saliva off on his sleeve.

"I like you, Dave."

They doodled more elaborate pictures of the epic battle between dragon!professor and the intrepid heroes, Sir Dave Strider and Terezi Redglare the Just for the rest of the class.


	4. Chapter 4

Tavros knew he was probably not going to enjoy college at all.

It hadn't exactly had an auspicious beginning, since he was rolling in late, a few days after the semester had already started. He had only just gotten out of the hospital, and the last weeks had been a whirlwind of doctor's appointments, calls to the college administration to confirm he was still enrolled and to get his room assignments changed, to make sure that his classrooms were accessible, and the whole thing.

He had half wanted to just forget it, to put college off for another year, to give himself time to adjust. But his new family had gently shoved him out the door, waving and smiling, and he hadn't had the courage to throw away all their efforts by staying home.

Besides, maybe doing something other than sitting around in his room would do him some good.

He had been a normal troll kid until three months ago, living in a little rural hive with his tiny lusus. But then there had been a car, and a cat in peril, and he had done something a little stupid.

At least the cat had been saved.

A human family in the neighbourhood had taken him in, because Tinkerbull couldn't hold him up or help him get to appointments. That had been weird, but good. He sensed his life would have been a lot more difficult without their help.

But now they were far away, and he was wheeling his chair up to the front door of a small house on campus. The residence administrators had placed him in the townhouse, saying it was better than the dorms for students with 'access challenges'. He supposed he was glad to be living alone, rather than in a dorm filled with able-bodied kids who might look down on him.

As he wheeled himself up the ramp to the front door, he thought he heard a thump from inside. For a moment, he paused and looked around, double-checking the number on the door against the sheet he'd received, but it was the right house. He must have been hearing things. Shaking his head, he reached the door and fumbled with his key.

Before he could get the key into the lock, it swung open. A tall, lanky troll with shaggy hair and weird face paint stood in the doorway, grinning down at him.

Tavros gaped and dropped his keys. "O-oh, uh, sorry," he stammered, trying to grope for his keys. "I guess I must, uh, have the wrong house."

"Don't be silly, my brother," the new troll drawled. His pupils were blown wide open, and he moved with a kind of disjointed grace, like all of his limbs were operating on their own and not quite in the right sequence, as he scooped up Tavros' keys and then stepped around him to push him into the house. "You've come to the motherfucking most _perfect_ , rightest place in the world."

"I'm, uh, pretty sure I haven't," Tavros tried as the troll wheeled him through the living room and then turned down a hallway. "Because I, uh, thought, I mean I was pretty sure, that I was, uhhh, supposed to be living alone."

The house was adulterated with a strange scent that was somehow familiar, and yet he couldn't identify it at all.

"Nah, you're living with me," the strange troll drawled lazily. "Because I heard that they were looking for a place for a motherfucking new kid, and I said, wow, new kid must need a friend, right? New kid must need a motherfuckin' brother to help him get himself all up and acclimated. And so I said hey, I'll take him, since I've got an extra room and all, and here you are, showing up like a motherfucking miracle and you're riding on wheels instead of legs, as if that's just the way a motherfucking troll is supposed to roll."

By the time he had finished this rambling speech, the troll had wheeled Tavros into a small bedroom, with a recooperacoon in one corner, a desk with no chair, and a few empty shelves at what would be waist height for a troll on his feet.

Tavros tried to remember how to speak. "Uh, well I can't walk, you see, because my legs don't work so well..."

" _Yeah,_ " the strange troll said, as if he'd said something incredibly profound. "You're like, motherfucking paralyzed or some shit. But you've got this here miracle chair, and I'm gonna be here, making sure you're all up and taken care of, you got it?"

The troll parked his chair and came around to face Tavros, then plunked himself down on the floor in front of him, long legs akimbo, and gazed dreamily up at him.

Tavros hesitated for a long moment, but it seemed that, contrary to what he'd thought, he really was supposed to be living here. "Thank you, uh, for your help," he said weakly. "My name is, uh, Tavros Nitram."

"Tavros Nitram," the troll drawled the names out long, as if rolling them around his mouth to see how they tasted. "That's a fuckin' miracle, right there."

"It is?"

"Yeah, because I'm Gamzee Makara." Gamzee gazed up at him with a sudden strange, sharp knowing in his eyes, which quickly faded. "You dig?"

"Um, no, I don't, uh, dig in any particular sense..." Tavros stammered in utter confusion.

Gamzee nodded as if he'd expected as much. "We're gonna be friends, Tav, my brother," he said, and then flopped back to lie on the floor, gazing up at the ceiling. "I know it, deep in my motherfucking soul."

Tavros smiled weakly. "That's, uh, really great. I don't have so many, uhhhh, friends, as such."

"You want a pie?" Gamzee asked. "They're just about motherfucking done."

"A pie?"

The oven timer pinged in the other room, and Gamzee grinned.


	5. Chapter 5

Karkat was a real jerk. John was really pretty sure that Karkat had never had fun in his life, and was completely against the very concept of fun, in fact.

Every time John tried to show Karkat something funny - the whoopie cushion he intended to place on their teacher's chair, the way he'd snuck the word "buttsniffer" into his coding in various places, so that when the teacher ran a particular part of the program every character would spontaneously say it, no matter what she did - he would just growl and swear at him, and tell him he was stupid and to shut up and leave him alone. In fact, the only time John had managed to get him to show any interest in a prank or funny story was when he had speculated about putting a tack on the teacher's stool instead of the whoopie cushion, but John didn't like actually hurting people with his pranks, so he'd discarded the idea.

It was really sort of annoying!

He had complained about it to Dave, who had shrugged in his coolkid way and then mentioned that the troll girl in his class liked to draw, but she was blind, so it was pretty funny, so not all trolls had to have no sense of humour. John sort of thought he'd rather have class with Terezi instead of Karkat.

But there was something about Karkat that kept John coming back, left him _convinced_ that if he could just find the right thing, they could be friends. It helped that they were forced to be lab partners for the whole semester, so they were pretty much in each other's faces no matter what.

"Come on, you've got to like _something_ ," John complained in an undertone as the teacher worked her way down the other rows, handing back assignments. "Tell me!"

"Nothing, Egbert," Karkat hissed. "I have no hobbies that your feeble human thinkpan can possibly comprehend, so there's no point in discussing it. In fact, there'd be no point in discussing it, even if your two braincells _could_ comprehend it, so shove off before I reach down your protein chute and pull your breakfast out with my fist."

"You wouldn't do that," John said, then continued on without taking a breath. "Come _on_ , don't you even like movies? I have some great movies that I bet you'd love."

There was a flicker to Karkat's eye that might have been interest, but was probably just a muscle twitch. "No! I hate movies. I hate all movies, particularly the ones you like."

Had there been a hesitation there? If there was one thing John was good at, it was following up on his instincts. He leaned closer. "Maybe you _do_ like movies. Come on, what's your favourite movie. Is it some troll movie? I heard that there's troll movie theatres in some towns, now, but the city I grew up in was too small to have one."

Karkat leaned back a bit as John leaned closer. "Much as I love hearing the touching tale of your origin story, Egbert," he growled, his yellow eyes flicking towards the screen. "Shouldn't we get back to our assignment?"

"The teacher hasn't finished handing it out, yet," John pressed. "Come on, don't duck the question. Tell me!"

"I'm not ducking any sort of question that you might possibly pose," Karkat snapped, eyes flashing. Aha, he had him. "If you must know, I like..." He paused, and then his voice dropped almost to a whisper so quiet that John had to strain to hear him. "Romcoms. But before you laugh!" he snapped, almost desperately. "Troll romcoms are nothing like the vapid grubloaf that you humans consume and call cinema. A troll romcom is so full of emotional depth and range that it would make your eyeballs pop out of your sockets and go rolling across the floor. Instead of just one quadrant, a troll romcom explores that depths and heights of both black _and_ red romance, experiences far beyond what any human can possibly experience in their shallow and pathetic lives."

John could feel his mouth hanging somewhere around his clavicle, and he snapped it shut. "That sounds pretty cool."

Karkat opened his mouth, clearly about to start ranting again in some attempt to show John just how his anticipated mockery of the cinematic miracle known as the troll romantic comedy was unjustified, but then what John had said seemed to hit his brain. "It does?"

"Yeah!" John said cheerfully. "Will you show me one? And I can show you my awesome action movies! Like Con Air! Have you seen Con Air? It's the best movie _ever_."

" _No,_ I haven't polluted my thinkpan with anything so pathetic and retarded as Con Air," Karkat snarled. "Why would I?"

"It's really good," John enthused. "Come on. We'll have a movie night. I'll show you mine, and you show me yours. Sound good?"

Karkat fell silent for a few long moments, frowning, then turned away and grabbed the sheet of paper with their assignment on it. His claws wrinkled the page. "Yeah. Fine. But don't expect me to like any of it. I may choke on bile and then you'll have to clean up my body _and_ all the vomit I spew on your floor before I expire from the pure overload of stupidity."

"Yes!" John cheered, and scooted his chair closer to look over Karkat's shoulder at the assignment page. For once, the troll didn't shove him away.


	6. Chapter 6

Tavros didn't have a pie, but he watched Gamzee eat his with relish and wrinkled his nose when the taller troll shoved a piece under his nose in offering. It smelled like stale sorpor slime, which he was assured it actually was, and suddenly had some inkling of why Gamzee was, well, Gamzee.

Gamzee lay on Tavros' floor and talked, his eyes glassy from the pie. He spoke about his absentee lusus, and how he'd decided to get an art degree, because making art was such a motherfucking miracle. Though Tavros had the distinct impression that he rarely actually attended classes or, well, did much art.

Slowly, Tavros began to open up to the strange troll, and told him about the accident, and the human family who had taken him in.

Soon both boys were yawning. It was past midnight, but the Earth sun wasn't nearly as strong as the Alternian, and so to fit in, most trolls had abandoned their nocturnal ways and become day-dwellers.

"I guess I should, uh, turn in," Tavros said finally in an apologetic tone. "I need to be in class, tomorrow, you know."

"Yeah, I know. You've gotta motherfuckin' get all caught up and stuff," Gamzee said dreamily. "Gotta study your horns off. You've got motherfuckin' great horns, by the way."

Tavros turned orangy-brown. "I, uhhh."

While he was still stammering, Gamzee got languidly to his feet and stretched. "Well, now I gotta get you all motherfucking ready to get your Zillyhoo on."

Tavros had no idea what a Zillyhoo was. "My what?"

"Your _Z's_ , brother, your _Z's_ ," Gamzee said patiently. "I just call them Zillyhoos sometimes. Don't know why."

"Do you mean I should, uh, get ready for bed?" Tavros asked weakly.

"Right. Except not right at all, my brother Tav." Gamzee nodded, and bent down, slipping his arms around Tavros. Tavros squeaked, and Gamzee lifted him up. Tavros squeaked a little louder and grabbed for Gamzee's neck, throwing his arms around it and clinging.

"Uhhhhhhh."

"I'm gonna help you," Gamzee said, carrying him into the adjoining bathroom.

"Um, that's not, uh, strictly speaking, uh, necessary," Tavros stammered.

"Don't be so up and bashful, Tav," Gamzee drawled. Then he set him down in the bathtub, and reached for his shirt.

Tavros squealed and stiffened, grabbing for Gamzee's hands. "Wait, wait! Stop! Please stop!"

Gamzee's long fingers stilled at the hem of Tavros' shirt. Something a little sharper seemed to have come into Gamzee's yellow eyes, and that was a bit reassuring. He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.

"Uh, I don't want to be, rude," Tavros said slowly. "But I don't, uh, know you very well. And this is all sort of sudden."

Gamzee smiled and lifted a hand, ruffling Tavros' hair. "Yeah, yeah, but don't worry, my brother. You can think of me like your motherfuckin' nurse, that's all. But if you want to get yourself all up and ready for bed by your lonesome, then that's up to you!"

Tavros was slightly taken aback by the easy acceptance, and he wavered a bit. "Yeah?"

"Yeah!" Gamzee nodded earnestly. "You want me to put you all up and back in your miracle chair, my brother?"

Now that Tavros was calmed down, he thought about this possibility. If Gamzee put him back into his chair and left him alone, he would face a long, lonely struggle to remove his clothing, get cleaned up, and then get himself into his recooperacoon.

Suddenly his freakout seemed sort of silly.

"...No," he said, his face falling slightly. "Actually, I would, uh, really appreciate your, uh, help. I mean, if you still don't mind."

"What would I mind?" Gamzee replied, grinning from ear to ear. "I'm here to motherfucking help you." And he reached for Tavros' shirt, lifting it smoothly over his head, and only fouling it a little on the horns.

With Gamzee's help, Tavros was cleaned up, dressed in soft pyjamas, and soon carried back into the other room, to the waiting, bubbling recooperacoon. The whole process was always humiliating, but Gamzee didn't seem to mind at all, and had hummed some kind of strict beat while he sponged Tavros off and rubbed his legs down to keep the muscles from atrophying.

"Did you, uh, do this before?" Tavros asked meekly as Gamzee carried him cradled in his - surprisingly strong - arms back into the bedroom.

"Never once in my life," Gamzee declared placidly.

"Oh."

Gamzee gently let him down, and Tavros grabbed the edge of the 'coon while his feet slid into the slime. The bigger troll looked at him critically. "We gotta fix your 'coon all up, my brother."

"Oh, uh, that's okay," Tavros said, sliding down as far as his horns would let him go. "I'm used to it."

Gamzee considered him for a moment, then nodded and ruffled his hair again. "I'll see about doing some kinda miracles on that 'coon tomorrow, to let your big beautiful horns in," he said with finality. "For now, enjoy your slime-free dreams, my brother." And he turned to amble away.

"Good night, uh, Gamzee," Tavros said softly. For a moment, Gamzee glanced back at him, flashing fang in a smile, and then he was gone and the door closed behind him.

Tavros squirmed in the 'coon, trying to get comfortable, which was, as usual, completely impossible. But despite that, he fell asleep quickly, and with a smile on his face. Maybe living with this weird guy wouldn't be so bad at all.


	7. Chapter 7

"What the fuck is this crunchy shit, Egbert?" Karkat asked, holding a piece of buttered popcorn up and eyeing it critically. "It looks like your roasted beetle turned yellow and exploded!"

They had yet to get a film started, but there were two stacks of DVDs sitting next to the television in John's dorm room, carefully sorted so that Karkat and John's DVDs didn't touch. It was as if Karkat was afraid that John's human movies would infect his superior troll cinema.

John's bed was the best vantage point for the movie watching, and the human already sat against the wall, his feet pulled up and pillows surrounding him, a bowl of popcorn next to him and a big space for Karkat. The troll was on the bed only by a few inches, perching at the foot as far away from John as possible.

The human made a face. "Ewwwwww! It's not beetle. It's popcorn! Um, exploded corn, I guess? Not beetles!"

Karkat made a similar face. "Ugh, you humans and your...vegetables." He made the word sound like the most disgusting thing he could think of to eat. But after a little hesitation, he did pop it into his mouth and chewed doubtfully.

"Huh. _Tastes_ like roast beetle," he muttered. "But less spicy and more salty."

John considered that. "Maybe I'll try it," he said bravely. "You know, sometime. You can bring some the next time we have a movie night!" He hopped off the bed to stick in the first movie, and returned a moment later with the remote, waiting for the menu screen to finish loading. Most of the text was in the Alternian letters that he couldn't read, but English words had been added for the convenience of human viewers and young trolls who had never bothered to learn their native tongue.

As he settled himself back down, a small plastic package landed in his lap. He looked up curiously. Karkat looked rather mutinous, but gestured. "I have an extra one," he growled and turned away. "If you really meant it. Which I'm sure you didn't. Humans have such a hangup about eating inse--"

John ripped the package open and fished out something. It was small, oblong and black.

He quickly popped it into his mouth before he could look at it too closely, and bit down. Something crunched, and something squished, and a sort of roasted smoky spicy cinnamony taste filled his mouth. He grabbed another one, and flipped the remote to Karkat. "It's good!" he said. "Let's watch."

Karkat glared at him as if he'd disappointed him, but there was a strange little quirk to his lips that might have been in a generally upwards direction. "Fine. Hold onto your shame globes, Egbert. It's time."

========>

Dave quickly discovered that homework was way more fun with Terezi than it was doing it by himself. Shockingly, they did actually mostly _do_ their homework, but they also talked about lots of other things, shot the shit, and generally wasted a lot of time in between getting work done.

That night, their third 'homework' session, which had mostly involved Dave laying down some sick rhymes while Terezi defaced printed out pictures from the internet, Dave asked her how she had lost her sight.

"You know how your lusus always tells you not to look at the sun for too long or you might go blind?"

"I don't have a lusus," Dave told her, leaning back in his chair until it stood on only two legs and making his pen walk across the back of his hand.

Terezi made an impatient noise. "Your momma, then. You know how your mother always tells y--"

"Never met her. I was raised by my brother."

There was a short silence. "Well, your brother had to have told you that, then, right?"

Dave let his feet touch the floor again and looked at her over his sunglasses, his lips twisting faintly into a wry smirk. Crimson eyes all but glowed out of a pale face. He rarely showed off his eyes, but he was older and wiser now. He had learned that sometimes when you had things you didn't want people to really worry about, it was better to just lay it on the table. Cooler, that way, instead of setting up a neon sign reading 'weak point here, please poke with a sharp stick'.

"I have acute albinism. You really think I ever go outside in the sunlight without a pair of these on and half a dozen layers of sunblock?" he asked, shoving the glasses up again.

Terezi smacked him on the arm. "Stop being difficult! Anyway, you know how your brother always told you not to stare at the sun too long?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I should have listened to my lusus."

He snorted, and she grinned. He was pretty sure she was lying. Pretty sure.

Later, he left her surrounded by a pile of crayons and paper and headed back to his own room. But when he arrived, he heard a muffled noise inside and paused, his hand on the knob, his Strider senses tingling.

There was no sock on the door. Not that he and John had bothered to work out a system or anything - technically they were dating, after all, which normally precluded the usual sources of teenage roommate awkwardness. But something felt off, even so.

Still, he couldn't be driven off by a feeling. Even if John _were_ getting it on in there with some...person - he wasn't even sure what sort of person he pictured, male or female, as the kind that would tempt John into some kind of infidelitous one night stand - Dave was cool enough to stroll right in and deal with it.

He turned the knob and strolled right in.

And he dealt with it.

The scene that confronted him was like nothing he had pictured. But he should have.

John lay sprawled across the bed, his head in the lap of a stocky troll with nubby horns and reddish tears trickling down his face. John himself was also bawling, his glasses askew and his face red and streaked with tears.

"But...but why couldn't he just be moirails with him?" John protested, wiping his eyes with the hem of the strange troll's shirt. The troll didn't seem to notice, busy scrubbing his face clean with his sleeve. "He didn't have to just leave because his guy was flushed for that girl! It's both red, after all. They could have still been together!"

"Idiot!" the troll snapped. "You can't just substitute pale affections for flushed. It's completely different!"

"But the pirate girl went from a, uh, what did you call it?"

"Kismessitude! Keep up, Egbert!"

"Right, a kismessitude, to an, er, auspiticizing relationship with that other pirate and the slave girl she liked, and that is sort of the same, isn't it?"

"Ugh! No, not at all! When she betrayed her kismesis to take the treasure and sunk her ship to the bottom of the ocean, the concupiscent relationship turned to a different kind of hate. It went beyond the kind of delicate balance of hatred and mutual respect required for a proper rivalry and turned into true murderous intent. Then the slave had to intervene or they would have actually killed each other. But you can't just turn that on and off like a spigot, moron! You can't just decide to go from flushed to pale or pitch to ashen just because your advances have been rejected."

"Oh well, I guess I can under-- Oh, hi Dave!"

Dave realized that he was still standing there in the doorway, watching the two fight it out while Alternian text scrolled upwards, showing the final credits of what was apparently some troll movie on the television.

He closed the door and crossed the room, seating himself casually on his own bed. "Hey. You must be Karkat."

The troll, who was glaring at him with apparent murderous intent, and with no slave present to intervene, jumped a little at being addressed by name. His hands had been resting on John's chest, and they jerked backwards, as if he had been burned. John sat up and beamed, pulling off his glasses to wipe the tear streaks from them.

"Yeah! This is Karkat, who I told you about. And Karkat, this is my boyfriend, Dave. We were just watching some movies."

"Boyfriend?" Karkat asked in a strangled voice.

"I can see that," Dave said wryly.

John beamed and bounded off the bed, all but flinging himself at Dave. He sprawled onto the bed, his arms around Dave's neck. Dave didn't move, his own eyes not leaving Karkat's, and his posture completely relaxed. "Do you want to join us?" John chattered, practically in Dave's ear. "We were going to watch another one of mine, next. Karkat really liked Con Air, didn't you Karkat?"

"It was the worst piece of tripe I've ever had the misfortune of suffering through!" Karkat snapped. He was tearing small holes in John's comforter with convulsive clenching of his clawed hands. "Anyway, I've got to get going. It's late, and we've got class tomorrow."

"What?" John blinked in obvious confusion. "But you said--"

Karkat jumped to his feet. "I didn't notice the time," he snarled. "Good night."

"Night, Karkles," Dave drawled as the troll stalked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

John blinked owlishly after him, and then looked at Dave. "Uh...what just happened?"

"Beats me," Dave said with a shrug, slipping his arm around John. He was almost entirely completely free of jealousy, and that was a good feeling. "He left his movies." He pointed his foot at a stack of DVDs with Alternian titles taking up nearly the entire front cover.

"You're right," John said, brightening. "I guess that means we really will have another movie night."

"Swell."


	8. Chapter 8

The Princess cut through the water with the grace and ease of a true fish, her hair streaming out behind her like seaweed as she stroked powerfully just under the surface. Of course, as an aquatic troll she didn't need to breathe the air, so she didn't surface until she reached the far end of the pool, far ahead of the other girls who were doing their laps. The humans on the team glanced at her with undisguised envy as she climbed out, water streaming from her body, her facial fins flicking a little with merriment as she turned to laugh at a comment someone made.

Sollux, cutting through the outdoor pool area and trotting past the swimming practice in progress, couldn't help admiring her. There was a troll he would never get to meet, let alone be friends with, though she did seem like a nice girl from a distance. Though the other girls on the team couldn't possibly compete with her in the water, they seemed to laugh and joke with her without reservation.

Then again, it was Feferi Peixes who would be winning them the national championship, this year, Sollux was sure. So what reason would they have to dislike her? If she ever reached professional levels, she wouldn't be competing in their class, anyway, but against the few other aquatic trolls in the world who chose to go to the Olympics.

Not that he...followed her career religiously or anything. Honestly, he had just looked her up once he heard she was going to be going to the same school as he was. Anyone would do the same.

The bios said that Feferi had been adopted by a rich human family, some kind of environmental activist weirdos who kept her lusus fed and had decided to help raise the future leader of all the Earth trolls, if not the entire galaxy. World leaders supposedly had the girl on speed dial, probably figuring that even if she was young now, she was a force to be reckoned with already, and would only become more powerful as she got older.

Most Earth trolls considered her to be their leader already, cut off as they were from adult troll society, which was out in space somewhere and which they knew little about.

A flicker of movement caught his eye and Sollux looked to his left, up into the stands. They were all but empty, just a few scattered students in groups, who looked to have chosen this spot as a quiet place to have lunch and chat with some friends. Except for one boy who earned himself a second glance.

There was a second aquatic troll at the pool today, but this one didn't seem like he was ready to go for a swim. The tall, lanky kid looked like a hipster, with a scarf around his neck despite the early fall warmth and stupid looking glasses. He was unique not only because he was probably the only other aquatic troll at this school - maybe even the whole state - but because he sat alone, unlike all the other students.

He didn't seem lonely, though. In fact, he looked like he was waiting, sprawled out comfortably and carelessly on the bench with his nose buried in a chemistry textbook.

Only Sollux realized that his eyes weren't moving. His gaze was fixed on the girls at one end of the pool, and Sollux smirked wryly as he realized who he was probably looking at.

Feferi Peixes, of course. The douchy-looking guy was probably her boyfriend, or something.

Oh well.

Sollux was so involved in his musings that he didn't notice the patch of water in front of him until his right foot hit it and slid out from under him. He yelped and flailed, windmilling his arms to try to catch his balance. His bag slid from his shoulder and hit the ground, and he stumbled over it, then toppled right over.

His back hit the water and it closed in over him.

 _Oh fuck,_ he thought in wild panic, his arms and legs still flailing uselessly as he sank like a stone. Surely no one would realize that he was completely incapable of swimming until it was too late. _That's ironic, that I'm going to drown in the most stupid way possible, surrounded by people._

He heard a splashing sort of noise, which seemed quite far away, and then felt gentle arms close around him and bear him upwards.

His head broke the surface and he breathed in, coughing and gasping more from panic than anything else. He craned his neck around in shock as his rescuer swam towards the edge of the pool and he grabbed onto it gratefully. "Holy shit, uh, thankth--"

Sharp teeth flashed in a cheerful smile as Feferi beamed at him. "Wow, you shore did fall in! That was a bit ---EXCITING for a second there, wasn't it?"

Sollux just stared, his throat completely closed with shock.

"What's your name?" she prompted, not seeming to notice or really care that Sollux was just gaping at her like a landed fish.

"Uh, Thollukth," he managed in a bit of a croak. "Thankth for, uh, rethcuing me."

"You thanked me already, Sollux," she said, grinning, and nodded significantly. "Need help climbing out?"

"N-no, no, I'm fine," Sollux said and boosted himself out of the pool, slipping out of her arms.

She rested her arms on the edge of the pool and looked up at him while he stood back and dripped. His clothes were completely soaked and he felt ridiculously embarrassed.

"I'm almost done. Will you meet me at the door of the change rooms?" she asked. "I'll just be two flicks of a carp's tail!"

He blinked. "Um, sure?"

She nodded and swam away in a flicker of fins and webbed toes. Not knowing why, Sollux grabbed his stuff and circled around to the other side of the pool where the doors to the change rooms were. He leaned against the wall and watched as the coach spoke to the clustered team.

As he waited, Sollux began to look around, and his eyes fell once more on the people sitting directly across from him on the bleachers. Suddenly, he realized that Feferi's boyfriend was no longer looking at her. In fact, the other boy was glowering at Sollux, though he hid his face behind the book as soon as their eyes met.

What was his problem?

Before he could figure it out, the team all began streaming towards him, a crowd of bathing-suit-clad pink wrigglers and a single grey troll in the centre of the chattering crowd.

Feferi paused only an instant and waved at Sollux, then raised one finger before darting into the changing room. Sollux rolled his eyes and frowned, but waited. It wasn't often that a Princess even talked to you, let alone told you to do something. And besides, she had saved his life. He didn't mind waiting, even if he had no idea what he was waiting _for_.

She emerged again only a few seconds later, though, carrying a bag. "Here!" she said, pushing it at him. "I hope they fit. I think they will."

Sollux stared at her, and then down at the bag in his arms. "Um."

She giggled. "It's a dry set of clothes, silly fins! I brought them for jogging later, but you can wear them home. Just bring them back tomorrow, okay?"

Understanding dawned, and Sollux flushed, offering her a shy smile. "Wow, thankth a lot, uh, Printheth."

She waved a hand at him. "Just call me Feferi! The boy's change room is right over there." She pointed at a second door nearby and then turned to skip off. At least, Sollux thought she was about to leave, until she paused and looked back at him over her shoulder. "I've got class, or I'd stay and glub with you a little more. But maybe we can glub tomorrow, if you're not too busy. I have a swim practice from three to five, but I'm free afterwards."

Sollux blinked and then nodded in confusion. "Uh, sure, we can glub tomorrow, if you want." _Glub?_

"Great!" She beamed at him and then vanished into the girls' room, from which he heard a lot of giggling.

Bemused, Sollux glanced around. The hipster guy was gone. Odd. He'd thought he would have been waiting for Feferi, but apparently not.

With a shrug, Sollux put it out of his mind and headed into the boys' change room to peel out of his wet clothes.

========>

The next afternoon Sollux found himself sitting on the bleachers, doing his homework while the girls swim team splashed back and forth across the pool once again. He felt a little less lame actually having a reason to be sitting there other than to watch Feferi, which he was really trying not to do.

She had waved at him cheerfully when he arrived, and he felt obligated to wave back, sure that everyone there was watching him and wondering what in hell a mutated yellow-blood troll was doing waving at someone with fins.

Though the only one who really seemed to be watching him and judging was that hipster guy. Yeah, he was back.

Sollux tried to ignore him as he sprawled on his stomach and opened his husktop to review some notes.

Eventually the swim practice broke up. Sollux glanced around once again after Feferi had disappeared to get changed, half expecting the hipster to be gone as he had been the day before. But no, he was still sitting alone on the bleachers about halfway up, pretending to read his stupid textbook and chewing idly on the end of his pretentious black and blue scarf.

Seriously, Sollux was starting to wonder what was with that guy. If he'd had hackles like a mammal, they would seriously have been standing on end. And Sollux didn't even know why he irritated him so much! It wasn't like he was really doing anything.

The sounds of giggling and more chatter drew Sollux' eyes away from the irritating aquatic troll and he watched Feferi walk towards him in a pair of flip-flops and a gauzy skirt that flowed like water around her long legs. She beamed at him and waved again, and Sollux raised his hand in answer, then shoved his husktop back into his backpack.

"Hello, Sollux!" she said cheerily, stepping over the lower bleachers to get up to his level and then plunking herself down on the level below him. "How are you?"

"Pretty good," Sollux said, smiling a little, and fished in his bag for the plastic bag she'd given him the day before. "I brought your clotheth back. Thankth again, uh, Feferi."

She clapped her hands once and took the bag. "Thank you, Sollux, and wow!" She blinked as she looked into the bag. "Did you _wash_ them?"

"Uh, yeah," Sollux said, flushing. He'd been sure she would expect the clothing to come back dry cleaned or something, but he'd done his best with the coin-operated laundry down the street. "Ith that...okay?"

"It's glubbing clamsiderate," she exclaimed, and slipped her arms around one of his, giving his arm a weird sort of hug. "You didn't need to do that. I have a washing machine at home, and you only wore them once, anyway!"

"Well, uh, they got a little damp, thinthe I was thtill a bit wet," Sollux invented quickly, feeling weird now. "But anyway, it wath no trouble."

She was still hanging onto his arm.

He was pretty sure he would never stop blushing.

But then, a shadow fell over them, and Sollux felt the blush begin to fade.

Feferi and Sollux looked up simultaneously, and Sollux saw a look of resigned irritation cross Feferi's face out of the corner of his eye. The hipster guy was standing over them, blocking the sunlight and glaring at Sollux.

"Hello Eridan," Feferi said, less than enthusiastically.

"Hey Fef," the boy said a little sullenly. "I just wwanted to talk to you for a sec, if you're done wwith this peasant."

"Peathant?" Sollux echoed indignantly, though he shot a quick glance at Feferi, wondering if she felt the same way about him. No real reason why she shouldn't.

"Yes," Eridan said haughtily. "I hear you're doin' Fef's laundry as thanks for savvin your life, yesterday. That's upright fuckin' generous of you."

" _Iiiiiiif_ you want to glubbing talk to me!" Feferi broke in, very loudly, before Sollux could reply. "You can glubbing talk, Eridan, without being rude, please. What did you want?"

Eridan hesitated, his eyes darting from Sollux to Feferi and back, then he drew himself up. "Wwell, it's just that I'm free tonight. And I wwas wwonderin if you'd come out wwith me, or somethin'. Tonight."

Despite his best efforts, Eridan faltered as he reached the end of his little speech, flushing purple, and Sollux wanted to laugh. Feferi's arm was still hooked around his, though she seemed to have forgotten that fact, and she gazed neutrally at Eridan until he fell silent.

Eridan wasn't her boyfriend. He was just a stalker or something. Hilarious.

"Eridan, you have asked me out how many times already? What makes you think I'll say yes today?" Feferi asked, rolling her eyes.

"Look, wwe could havve a good thing!" Eridan protested, his fingers fidgeting with his scarf. "It's practically destined anywway. I mean, wwho else at this fuckin' plebeian school wwould you go wwith? Wwe're the only twwo aquatic trolls here! You havve to go out wwith me!"

"I _have_ to?" Feferi asked dangerously.

Eridan's flushed cheeks went back to a pale grey as all of the blood drained right out again. "I didn't mean it like that, Fef!" he protested weakly. "I didn't mean like you _havve_ to, I just mean there's no other options that aren't dowwnright stupid. Wwho're you gonna date, huh? Some human?"

"Maybe I _have_ a boyfrond, did you ever think of that, you weird shellfish boy?" Feferi snapped.

"I'm not shellfish-- huh?" Eridan stared. "You don't havve a boyfriend..."

"Maybe I'm dating Sollux, here," Feferi said, tightening her arms around Sollux' arm again and glaring huffily up at Eridan, who stared at Sollux with open consternation. "Isn't that why you've been snarling at him like a glub all afternoon?"

Sollux didn't much like being thrust into the middle of this all of a sudden, and he felt his cheeks turning yellow. "Uh..."

But neither of the royal trolls were paying attention to him. Eridan was looking at Feferi again, wringing his hands. "Fine, fine, I get it. You go havve your slumming fun, Fef. I'll be here wwhen you come to your fuckin' senses."

He turned and stalked off without waiting for Feferi's answer, and she stuck her tongue out at his back.

The moment Eridan banged his way through the gate and was out of sight, Feferi let go of Sollux and looked up at him with a worried expression. "I'm _so, so_ sorry for doing that, Sollux." She made a soft glubbing sound in her throat. "He's been hanging around ever since school started, and it just makes me so mad! But I shouldn't have used you like that. It was very petty."

Sollux shrugged uncomfortably and adjusted his glasses. To be honest, he agreed it was petty, but he could also understand. "I didn't really mind," he said honestly. "That guy theemth like a dick."

She sighed heavily and jumped to her feet, the bag with her clothes in it swinging from her wrist. "He sort of is," she said. "I don't know why he is so fixated on me! There are lots of fish in the sea, if he weren't so thick-shelled about it."

Sollux got to his feet and shouldered his own bag. "Well, hopefully he'll leave you alone, now," he said. He could scarcely believe he was just standing here, talking to Feferi like this. His luck with girls was getting weirdly good, lately.

"Hopefully," Feferi said with a sigh. She glanced at him sidelong and smiled. "If you don't think I'm a horrible, petty troll, you can come back anytime. Not to pretend to be my boyfrond! But I mean, to become real fronds, if that sounds glub."

Startled by the offer, and the almost nervous, sweet way she said it, Sollux nodded before he had even had time to talk himself out of it. "That thoundth nithe," he said, smiling.

"Great!" She turned and trotted off, hopping over the benches and landing on the ground, then turning to give him a wave before she trotted off to meet a group of her human friends from the swim team, who were standing in a cluster waiting patiently for her.


	9. Chapter 9

There was a girl on Sollux' sofa.

Sollux wasn't really sure how that had happened, but he was immensely pleased about it. And it wasn't the first time, either.

Aradia rested on her stomach on his little futon couch, her knees bent and feet kicking a little in the air as she read from her big, fat textbook. One of her flip-flops was hanging loose from one toe, dangling precariously, but she didn't seem aware of it. She was wearing a peasant skirt and a pretty white blouse with her symbol stitched neatly on the lapel.

Sollux was on the floor, on his back, his husktop on his stomach and his head propped up by one of the couch pillows. It was a convenient position for looking up at her, though he didn't think she realized that he'd chosen that position deliberately. At least, he hoped not. That would be pretty lame.

She was chewing on her highlighter idly as she studied, the pen covered in sharp tooth-marks. Trolls tended to do a number on pens if they had that habit.

Sollux rubbed his blue eye, pushing his glasses up a little with his finger and then resettling them. He needed a break from this homework. "You want a thnack or thomething?" he asked.

Aradia looked up at him - well, down - and grinned. "Sure, sounds good."

He nodded and set his husktop aside, getting to his feet and padding over to the little kitchenette. His apartment was basically one room, with a glorified closet that held his double-wide recooperacoon. For all that it was only one room, it was decently spacious and well-appointed. He had never been more grateful for the fact that he'd decided to live off campus instead of in the dorms, than he was whenever Aradia popped over for a study session.

Which she'd done three times, just in the two weeks since they'd met.

His apartment had never been cleaner. Even the bees seemed better-behaved, after the scrubbing session he'd done after the first visit.

"So I heard you went for a little swim yesterday," Aradia said suddenly.

Sollux stiffened, his eyes widening a little, and he snuck a look at her over the door of his fridge. She was looking up at him over the top of her book, grinning, and he felt something cold settle into the pit of his stomach.

He shut the door with a bit more force than was necessary, and opened his cupboard, looking for clean glasses. "Yeah, where'd you hear thomething like that?"

"The story got around," Aradia replied.

"The thtory got around that I went thwimming?" Sollux retorted sarcastically. "I didn't know that was front page newth. Mutht have been a thlow day."

Aradia rolled her eyes and sat up, setting her book aside and crossing her legs. "Wow, I hit a nerve there, did I?" Her eyes sparkled and she tucked a curl behind one pointed ear. "Obviously I heard about it because Feferi Peixes was there, silly! You think trolls don't gossip about the future Empress?"

Oh. Sollux went a little yellow and turned away to pour the sodas. "I don't gothip with trollth," he muttered.

"That's because you barely talk to anyone!"

Sollux' blush deepened, along with his irritation. "Well, tho what? I fell into the gog-damned pool and it was embarathing and ff helped me. End of thtory."

"Is that really the end of the story?"

Sollux looked up, startled. Aradia was looking at him with open curiosity.

"What do you mean?" he asked warily.

She crawled up onto the sofa, kneeling with her hands pressed to the arm and leaning over towards him eagerly. "What's she like?"

Oh gog. He picked up the sodas and juggled a bag of Doritoes - human food, but he'd developed a taste for them years ago - as he walked back towards her. She accepted her glass and he sat down, dropping the bag on the sofa between them.

"She'th friendly," he said. She was watching him intently, and it was making him feel a little uncomfortable. He fidgeted with his glass, rubbing the condensation off with his fingers. "And pretty, uh, ekthitable, I gueth. But nithe." He considered mentioning the stalker guy, and decided that was probably not something Feferi wanted publicized.

Aradia smiled and sipped her drink. "Do you like her?"

"What." Sollux stared at her, stunned. "Uh...you mean like, like?"

"Mmhmm."

He rolled his eyes. "Aa, I've known her for like...fifteen minuteth. Topth. And she'th practically... I mean, she'th the printheth. No, I don't _like_ her. Even if that were pothible - which who knowth if it ith or not - I'll never even get a chanthe to get to know her well enough to like her. She wath nithe to a thtupid lowblood guy she had to fish out of the pool, and maybe she'th a little lonely, but that'th all."

Aradia seemed to consider that answer for a moment, then she curled her fingers around his free hand, and Sollux nearly swallowed his tongues. "Do you want to come to a club meeting with me tomorrow?"

Sollux tried to remember how to breathe. For a second, he'd thought she was asking him on a date. Was she asking him on a date? He tried to remember how to speak.

"Um. Club meeting?"

She beamed. "Yeah, there's this club I go to, and I think it'll be fun if we go together. It's a roleplaying club. Do you want to come tomorrow? It'll be an opportunity for you to meet more people. We're mostly trolls, too, which is sometimes nice. There are so few of us."

Roleplaying was stupid. Sollux had never done it. It was something for nerds and wrigglers. Wrigglers who were nerds. Nerdier than Sollux.

"Sure, I'd love to come."

"Great! It'll be fun."


	10. Chapter 10

Tavros wheeled his four-wheeled device into the lecture hall and looked up, and up, daunted by the rows and rows of chattering, laughing humans. First year biology was a pretty big class - several hundred people, and it was a little intimidating. He saw the crowd was dotted with the grey faces of a few trolls here and there, but Tavros didn't recognize any of them, of course. So far as he knew, the only person he knew at this school was his weird roommate, Gamzee.

And he probably wasn't going to get to know any of them, he reflected with a sigh as he rolled his way over to one of the spaces left specifically for wheelchair-bound students at the front. There were no students at all in the first four rows, since the back rows tended to fill up first. He was a cripple, and a troll, which meant that few people would really want to approach him or try to be his friend. And he was too shy to approach others.

He locked the wheels on his chair and reached up to bring a writing desk down in front of him on its long metal arm. It seemed he was the only student in a wheelchair, too.

If it weren't for Gamzee, it really would be a lonely year. And he still wasn't quite sure what to think of his stoner roommate who didn't seem to ever go to class, but who was more than happy to help him with the most menial of tasks.

As he leaned over to extract his notebook and pencil case from the carrying sack hanging from the back of his chair, a flicker of movement caught his eye and he looked up.

A short troll girl in a long trench coat and a t-shirt with some characters on it that looked like they might be Chinese plunked herself down in the chair beside him and beamed at him. As Tavros met her eyes, he realized she was wearing a headband just behind her horns with little fluffy cat-ears attached to it.

"Ohayo-meow!" she said cheerfully.

"Uh...what?" That didn't sound like English, and Tavros was pretty sure he was giving the weird girl a deer-in-headlights look.

She only grinned. "I saw you down here, looking like you might pawsibly be lonely, so I thought I'd join you."

Tavros looked around, setting his notebook and case down on the desk. As he'd seen before, the first several rows were completely devoid of students, meaning that this strange girl and himself were the only ones up at the front of the class, surrounded by a sea of empty chairs.

"That was, uh, really nice of you," he said tentatively. "I'm Tavros."

"Nepeta," she said and dove into a messenger bag with the words 'Death Note' emblazoned on the flap, pulling out a battered notebook and a handful of colourful gelpens.

"Are you sure you, don't want to sit with your friends?" Tavros asked.

She smiled at him. "None of my friends are in this class. Pretty much most of the people I've met are stuffy! But that's purrfectly okay, beclaws maybe you and I can be friends, now. What's your major?"

Tavros found himself relaxing a little. She was weird, with all of her cat puns, but it was cute, too. "I'm, uh, going to be doing Veterinary Medicine. I have to take this class as a prerequisite."

Her eyes widened. "Wow, really? I'm doing that, too! I'm going to be a vet."

"Really?" Tavros smiled. "That's great. Uh, I guess we'll be in a lot of classes, together. I don't...know anyone in my classes or anything."

"Well, you know one person, now," Nepeta said, then hushed as the professor walked up to the front of the class and turned on the powerpoint for the lecture.

A few minutes later, as the professor had begun the drone and Tavros was madly scribbling notes, Nepeta leaned over and cautiously whispered into Tavros' ear, avoiding his horn. "Hey, Tavros?"

He shot her a sidelong look. "Yeah?"

"Do you like to play games?"

He frowned in confusion. "Games? I like Fiduspawn and I have a DS."

She shook her head quickly. "Those are pawesome, but I mean roleplaying games."

Tavros blinked. "I've played them before, yeah. It was fun. But I can't, uh, flarp anymore." He touched his right leg with his fingers, which of course he couldn't feel.

Nepeta's eyes dropped to look, as if she hadn't really noticed before, and she looked up again and shrugged. "You just need dice for this, no flarping. Do you want to come on Thursday to my roleplaying club? I started it at the beginning of the year and it's pretty fun."

Tavros couldn't quite believe that he'd not only made a friend in his own major on his first day without needing to do a thing, but that she was inviting him out to a club meeting, as well. He beamed, nodding quickly before he could get nervous. "Yes, yes I'd really like to."

She grinned toothily and gave him a thumbs up, then turned back to pay attention to the lecture, scribbling frantically in lines of green as she listened.


	11. Chapter 11

There was nothing more majestic than a horse. Equius had always known it to be true.

He had never seen musclebeast art, since Alternia and musclebeasts no longer existed. Still, he had some choice pieces that depicted Earth horses on the walls of his hive. Some of them he'd even brought with him to decorate the smaller human-style house he'd rented upon enrolling at this school in the summer.

As such, he was pleased that this school had attached to it a farm of sorts, with a few horses and other animals, and even some vegetable gardens - though the latter held no interest to trolls.

He anticipated spending many quiet days over the next few years, simply watching the horses crop their way placidly across the field, or trotting around in a more spirited manner. Even now he stood at the fence, his bare arms crossed and resting on the rough wood, sweating slightly.

From the sun, of course. Just from the sun.

A trail ride was just going out, and Equius watched as the four riders, including the leader, adjusted their stirrups and then swung up into the saddles, the horses pawing the ground and shifting from foot to foot. He perked up with interest as he saw that one of the riders was a female troll, with short, wide horns. He hadn't seen a troll at the stable before now, and she seemed oddly familiar to him. Perhaps she was in one of his classes.

It was too bad he was too STRONG to ride a horse. At least, he feared he might be, and didn't want to make the mistake of trying, and damaging one of the fine beasts.

His gaze followed the four mounted horses as they walked through the pasture towards the far gate, beyond which was a rougher area of forest where the trails were.

Following an impulse, he straightened up and hopped the fence with one powerful jump, then trotted after the horses across the grass. None of the riders looked back to see him, and the other horses ignored his passage as he followed the single-file train to the far end of the paddock and then through the gate, and then into the trees beyond.

========>

Nepeta wasn't sure why she liked horses so much. Of course, kitties, she absolutely pawsitively loved, she knew that much. But she had always had a soft spot for horses, as well.

Which was why she'd been so happy to find out that the school had a stable, and that students could go on trail rides whenever they wanted to and the horses were available. As a veterinary student, she figured she had better get to know as many animals as she could, too!

So why not go for a trail ride after her very successful first day?

She'd enjoyed all of her classes, even though she suspected some of them would be pretty boring. And she'd even met a nice troll kid in her biology class, who seemed like he needed a few more friends, and who was interested in roleplaying. Honestly, she deserved a little R&R rather than going back to study like a good girl.

She swung up onto the saddle and squeezed her heels together awkwardly, and the horse shifted and pranced a bit. This was already sort of fun! Though she'd never ridden a real animal before, and the feeling of having one moving on its own, without necessarily listening to her, was a bit daunting.

Still, the horses were well-trained, and they fell into line obediently as the lead horse headed off across the pasture.

Nepeta didn't look around too much as they went, concentrating on watching the swishing tail of the horse in front of her, and her immediate surroundings, and getting used to the shifting gait of the horse.

She didn't notice a blue-blood troll hop the fence and move to follow.

They passed through the gate and then followed the trail across a short stretch of green and into a wooded area.

Nepeta found herself growing more comfortable with the slow, swaying movement of the horse under her thighs, and began looking around with excitement as they began to pick up the pace, walking along the well-trodden path under the trees. The cool shadows were a relief to a troll's eyes, and she began to truly relax.

This was pawsibly the most fun a troll could have with a horse, though it sure would be nice if they would go faster!

They passed out from under the trees into a field, but the pace didn't pick up. Nepeta blinked in the renewed sunlight, wondering if this was really all there was going to be.

Then the horse in front of her stumbled and whinnied with what sounded like fear, then turned and bolted across the field. The lead rider yelled, and the student on the bolting horse cried out, holding onto her reins for dear life. There was a harsh buzzing sound, and Nepeta's eyes widened as a swarm of bees erupted from the ground almost under her own horse's hooves.

The horse in front of her must have stepped on a hive.

Nepeta felt the horse's muscles bunch and heard an animal scream. Then her stomach dropped as the horse reared under her, the sound of buzzing filling her ears.

She felt herself slip and then she was flying through the air. Then something heavy crashed into her and she didn't feel anything more for a while.

========>

Equius was starting to wonder why he had come all this way. It was nice to follow the horses, though there was a human between himself and the troll that fascinated him, so he couldn't get a better look at her.

Really, this had been foolish. He should have simply waited for the trail riders to return to the stable instead of following them. He didn't even know how far they were going, though he wasn't concerned about getting too tired.

Just as he was about to simply turn back and follow the trail back to the stable, he heard a whinny of a horse in distress, and watched in horror as one of the horses bolted in panic, a cloud of bees buzzing up angrily from the ground.

Then the troll girl's horse also began to rear and plunge in panic, and Equius leaped into action.

He leaped fully over the horse in front of him, causing it to startle and turn away to gallop back down the trail. The human on the back of that horse screamed, but at least that horse was just running, not rearing, so she would probably be fine.

Then Equius grabbed for the reins of the female troll's horse, but she was thrown before he could grab the horse and pull it down. He immediately reversed direction, abandoning the horse with a mental apology as it went darting through the tall grass, away from the bees.

Bees dove at Equius, but couldn't penetrate his tough troll skin with their stingers, and his sunglasses shielded his vulnerable eyes. He ignored them and leaped towards the small troll.

He might have misjudged the leap a little.

He crashed into her in mid-air, wrapped his arms around her, and landed a good ten feet away, then sprinted for the darkness of the trees, sheltering her in his arms. The horses and humans could deal with the emergency, but he needed to make sure that his moirail was all right.

Wait. Moirail?

As he neared the stable, the girl stirred and opened her eyes, blinking faintly greenish orbs up at him in confusion.

"Uh...hello?"

He looked down at her, pausing in his run and careful not to tighten his grip. He was holding her as gently as he could, and he still feared he might bruise her.

"Hello," he said. "Ah, my name is Equius Zahhak. Are you unhurt?"

She shifted in his arms and he let her down carefully, ready to support her if she needed it. She straightened and seemed to take mental stock of herself, shaking her head in confusion. "You saved me?"

"Um. Yes," Equius said.

She beamed and threw her arms around his shoulders, and he started to sweat. "It's grrrrreat to meet you, Equius!"

"You're welcome," Equius said uncertainly, holding himself very stiffly with his hands held out from his sides, not reaching to return the hug. He'd surely crush her if he tried.

She looked up, her smile wide and eyes sparkling. "I'm Nepeta Leijon. I can already see we're going to be friends."

Considering they'd barely even learned each other's names, that seemed like quite a leap. And yet, it didn't. Equius felt his expression softening a little, and Nepeta's smile also softened as she patted his shoulder with one hand as if reclaiming a cherished object that she had lost and only just found once more.

"Yes," Equius said. That queer feeling of familiarity just wasn't going away. "I think so, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events in this chapter are actually drawn from something that happened to my father a few months ago. He fractured his hip, but thankfully is fine. And he suffered a lot more bee stings than Nepeta did. Too bad he didn't have a STRONG troll to save him!


	12. Chapter 12

Ugh. Basic data structures. What a waste of fucking time.

Sollux glanced around the classroom glumly as the teacher lectured, explaining a concept that was so ridiculously simple that one would have thought only a drooling idiot could fail to grasp it. Unfortunately, while none of his classmates _seemed_ to be actually drooling right this second, they clearly fell into that category.

Their glassy stares frustrated the hell out of him. He had tried to convince the school to let him test out of this class, but they insisted that he go through the basic computer programming course before they would allow him to advance. No matter how mind-numbingly boring it was.

He wouldn't even _be_ here, if the teacher didn't assign work in class each day, which was graded, and had to be completed in class.

I mean, what kind of stupid set-up was that? In any other class, Sollux could pretend he had a free period, then walk in and ace the exam. But if he tried that, he'd still flunk, because of these stupid mini projects.

Lame.

The teacher passed up and down the rows, dividing up the class into pairs for today's project. That was another infuriating part - having to deal with an idiot directly, letting them sponge off of his genius while to him it was a waste of time even thinking about the project.

He sighed and waited for the student she'd assigned to join him. She had split up a pair who often worked together, and they were being sent to opposite ends of the classroom to work, under grumbling protest. One of them was a troll, with oddly blunt, short horns and a faintly reddish cast to his eyes, and - weirdly - a grey symbol on his chest. The other was a human, with thick glasses and a smile that looked almost manic. The human sighed and gathered up his books to go join a large troll sitting at the front of the class, while the nubby-horned troll stomped over to Sollux.

"Hello," the troll grunted.

"Hey," Sollux said, equally irritated. "Do you have thomething for me to call you?"

"Karkat Vantas," Karkat snarled, baring sharp teeth as if asking for his name was some kind of personal insult. He slid onto the stool beside Sollux and tried to commandeer the keyboard.

Sollux rolled his eyes and scooted it a few inches closer to himself, maintaining control. "I'm Thollukth Captor," he said, wincing inwardly as he always did when he spoke his name out loud. Karkat's eyebrows shot up.

He braced himself.

"Nice lisp," Karkat said. "This project is stupid. Let me do this so you can go back to chewing gum or whatever you prefer to do when you're not working your think pan so hard steam issues from your auricular sponge clots."

Okay, that hadn't been so bad, but there was no way Sollux was giving up his keyboard. "Pithh off, Vantath," Sollux said. "Let me do it, and we'll be done in ten minuteth. They wouldn't let me tetht out of thith thtupid clathh, but that doethn't mean I have to wait around and watch you fuck it up for half an hour before you come whining to me, inevitably."

Karkat snorted. "Listen 'Thollukth', I get that you think you're hot fucking shit, but--"

He broke off, staring at the computer screen.

With a start, Sollux realized that he'd left his Trollian window open. He'd been chatting with Aradia, and the last few bits of their conversation were still visible. Of course, Trollian wasn't supposed to be _on_ these computers, but it had only taken about fifteen minutes of his first class to hack the administration password for his machine, so he could start messing with the programs.

And it had only taken that long because he hadn't been able to hook up any of his personal equipment.

He cursed and jerked his hand forward to close the window, but Karkat grabbed his wrist and forced it away from the mouse.

"Lay off!" Sollux hissed, belatedly realizing that the teacher was looking at them. It looked like she was worriedly considering whether two of the troll students were about to go shithive maggots in the middle of class. Some weird human religious groups campaigned to eliminate trolls from things like human schools because of troll violence, but it was exaggerated. Mostly exaggerated.

He swallowed and let Karkat look, scanning the screen to make sure there wasn't anything too incriminating.

"You're TA?" Karkat whispered.

That...wasn't what Sollux had expected him to say.

"Uh. Yeah?" Finally Karkat gave him his hand back, and he quickly closed out the window, offering the teacher a reassuring smile. She watched them another couple of seconds, then returned to what she was doing at her desk. "Tho what?"

"Tho-- I mean, so what?" Karkat was still speaking in a low tone, a mixture of breathless shock and caution. Perhaps he'd seen the teacher, too. "I'm CG."

Sollux blinked. "CG?" He stared at the nubby-horned, short troll with the red eyes. And the grey symbol on his chest. That same stupid grey colour the loony troll Sollux had been talking to online for half his life always typed in. "Hopy shit."

Karkat had a strange expression on his face. He looked sort of like he needed to go to the load gaper, but Sollux abruptly realized that it was because he was trying to scowl in order to cover a happy grin.

Sollux didn't bother to hide his own grin. "Nithe to meet you in perthon, CG. You definitely want me to do thith thtupid project, right?"

The other troll hesitated, but before he could reply, the human he'd been sitting beside sidled up to them. "Heeeeeeeey, guys," the human boys said, his eyes darting back and forth. "Think I could join you for a bit, old buddy, old pal?"

"What?" Karkat snarled, rounding on the kid with more vitriol than Sollux considered necessary. "Fuck off, Egbert. You have your own project to do."

"Oh come on," Egbert moaned.

"What'th wrong?" Sollux asked. He opened a coding window and started typing one-handed, his eyes on the human, and his mind only half on the coding he was doing.

Karkat snarled. "I'm not going to entertain your transparent fucking attempts to--"

"He's coming!" the human hissed, and all but _hid_ behind Karkat - which was really difficult to do, since Karkat was sitting at a stool at a desk beside Sollux. The human wound up wedged between Karkat and Sollux, and perfectly visible.

The troll Sollux had seen before, if only from behind, was striding purposefully up towards them with a grimace on his lips. He had a blue symbol on his chest, which made Sollux' heart sink just in and of itself, given the arrogant look on his face. He also had a few broken teeth and one of his horns was broken off. And he had a distinct odour about him.

"Human," the blue blood rumbled. "We are supposed to be collaborating on this project."

"I'm fine!" Egbert squeaked. "You go ahead."

Sollux groaned and jumped up from the stool, planting himself between the troll and the other two. "What'th going on here?"

The big troll looked taken aback by being confronted by a yellow-blood who stood a full head shorter than he was, and had probably a quarter of his mass. "Nothing is going on. He suddenly left the desk, in direct contradiction to the commands of our school-feeder." He gestured towards the teacher.

"He broke all the keys on my computer keyboard with his fingers," Egbert hissed. "And then he started sweating like mad and growling!"

Sollux facepalmed. So did Karkat.

"I was merely a little cross," the big troll said diffidently. "I won't harm the human without cause."

"My name is John Egbert! Not human," John huffed. "Stop calling me that."

"You'd damn well fucking better not hurt _anyone_ ," Karkat snapped, and Sollux realized suddenly that the rustblood had joined him in defending John.

Not that Sollux was really defending John.

Okay, maybe he was. But it was just out of principle. He didn't even know the guy.

Sweat was springing out across the strange troll's skin. "You inferior lowbloods don't know to whom you are speaking."

"I know exactly to 'whom' I'm speaking," Karkat snarled. "A stupid clumsy blueblood who needs to get down off his high fucking horse and chill out."

"High horse?" the troll echoed in a strangled tone. "Would you be, perhaps, ordering me to go back to my desk and complete my work obediently, leaving this human alone?"

Sollux stared for a moment, experiencing a bad feeling that for once had nothing to do with his psychic powers. "Uh...CG?"

"Yeah, go do that," Karkat snarled, and the big troll turned around and lumbered back towards his desk.

There was a short silence.

"What the actual fuck jutht happened?" Sollux asked quietly.

John was almost bent double with silent laughter. "I think you just flirted with him, Karkat."

"Oh. Fuck me with a rusty eating prong."

"That was the funniest thing ever!" John said, wiping his eyes. "Like something out of a movie! Speaking of which - hey, Karkat, are you coming over for another movie night, soon?"

From the way Karkat's head turned so fast to glare at John, Sollux had a feeling Karkat probably had just literally given himself whiplash.

"Why would I do that, nooksniffer?" Karkat snarled.

John looked honestly taken aback. "Because it's fun."

"It's not fun," Karkat snarled, but with a little less heat. "Your room is small, and...and your movies are stupid."

Sollux chortled. "There are little movie theatreth you can rent, you know. In the bathementth of thome of the buildingth." One of them was right next to his computer lab.

John's eyes went round behind his glasses. "Really? Hey! Do you like movies, uh..."

"Thollukth."

"Do you like movies, Sollux?" John asked dutifully.

Sollux shrugged. "I guethh tho."

Karkat was watching this exchange with a suspicious expression, which turned to shock when John grabbed his arm. "Let's start a movie club! We've got so many movies, between the two of us, we could probably show movies every week all year and not run out."

"You just want to watch movies with me," Karkat growled, trying to shake off the human without success.

"So? You'll come, right Sollux?"

Sollux found himself grinning. It was so obvious what was really going on here, and he was totally fine with trolling Karkat if it meant he'd get to see more of the human's obvious attempts to flirt and get into a red quadrant with Karkat. And it was equally obvious to him that Karkat wanted that attempt to succeed, no matter how much he tried to pretend he didn't.

"Sure, of courthe I'll come. It'll be fun. Can we bring friendth along?" Sollux asked, smirking at Karkat.

"As if you have any fucking friends, you lisping loser," Karkat snarled, at the same moment John said. "Sure you can!"

"Looking forward to it," Sollux said, and slid back onto the stool. He resumed typing, while Karkat and John crowded around him, bickering over what movie to show on their first night, and watching in awe as Sollux constructed the program they were supposed to be making in half the time it would take either of them.

As he worked, he realized he really was looking forward to it. He knew Karkat liked romcoms, which weren't his favourite, but it didn't really matter. He had a good feeling about John, and Karkat he'd known forever, if only online. Somehow the prospect of going somewhere where there might be a lot of people didn't scare him much, if it were these particular people. And Aradia, and maybe Feferi would like to come, too.

Maybe it would be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry to all of those who have been following this fic for a long time. I have tried, but I don't think I'll be getting back to this one. I began it when I first got into Homestuck, and wanted to play in a sandbox, but my interpretation of the characters has shifted a lot since I started. I enjoy some of the ideas I had, but it doesn't hold the shine it did before, and I have other things I want to focus on.
> 
> Please forgive me! ;A;


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